In California
Clark July 3rd, 2007
Condesa is put to bed and I’ve flown home.
It turned out the cheapest way to get here was to fly to Tijuana via Mexico City and cross the border on foot. It made for a long night, arriving in TJ in the heat of a June morning.
When the plane arrived in Mexico City I had to pass immigration and stand in line for about an hour. When I was getting close to the front of the line I noticed a Peruvian gal from my plane looking green. Soon she collapsed on the floor.
It is absolutely amazing that a group of adults, assumedly educated, can behave like such idiots when somebody faints. You’d think there’d be a doctor in the line, or at least someone other than me who had taken a basic first aid course. I don’t take charge too often in life, but when I take charge I take charge. I burst in and said, “Soy medico,” which is a little ambiguous. It’s not really saying I’m a doctor, but could be interpreted that way.
“You, stop slapping her! You, stop fondling her! You, get your hands out of her mouth. You, help me get her feet up. Now, who has some Mexican pesos?”
“I do.”
“OK, you go over to that shop and buy some orange juice or something with a lot of sugar. And you, standing there with the walkie-talkie looking like you’ve seen a ghost, call the airport doctor and get him over here.”
I have fainted spectacularly in public several times in Mexico City. It’s over 7000 feet, so if you fly from sea level the altitude gets you. Combine it with having low blood sugar before breakfast, being a little dehydrated, and down you go.
The gal was well-dressed, forty-ish, and traveling on her own.
I knew what she was going through, so I made sure the first thing she saw when she awakened was my smiling face saying, “You’re fine. You just fainted. It’s the altitude and it’s happened to me lots of times. Don’t try to get up or it will happen again. We need to get some sugar in your stomach first.”
She understood, but I saw the three expressions on her face, the very same three I had each time I fainted. First, where the hell am I? Second, crushing embarrassment and self consciousness. And third, the realization that you have been completely unconscious, that *everything* has relaxed, and oh God, did I just pee myself or crap my pants with all these people watching?
I tried to convey with my relaxed manner that she hadn’t done anything embarrassing.
Before the orange juice arrived the airport doctor showed up. When somebody says ‘call a doctor,’ this is what the universal mind conjures up. He was the spitting image of the doctor on the old TV show Emergency! with his little tackle box and his white lab coat, flecks of gray in his dark hair. He followed very proper procedure in doing the handoff from me as the attending physician, asking me all of what had gone down and what I’d done.
Finally they mopped her off the floor and took her away from the crowd, but the original orange juice made its way to her. I started feeling faint shortly therafter and got one for myself.
No comments yet.